6.0 Predictions: Will it be Garlemald, Sharlayan, or Meracydia?

A recent interview GameSpot with Yoshi-P stated that they were going to be "subverting expectations" and that we should "get a refresher on Heavensward".

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GS:Are we going to be in Garlemald soon? We've seen a little bit of it in story moments with Estinien and Gaius but are we going to start seeing more and actually going there?

Yoshi-P:In that aspect, I think we'll be able to go against players' expectations in a good way. Content that's coming in the patch 5.3 series, there's the Sorrow of Werlyt, the latest installment in the weapon series, where you're actually fighting against the forces of the Garlean Empire. In Save the Queen, the Bozjan Southern Front is an upcoming instance that really touches upon the Garlean Empire.

Of course, it's not quite the main story but it is a pretty significant story...

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At first, I believed that we would be heading to Garlemald at long last and putting a stop to the war once in for all as well as wrap up the story with Hydealyn and Zodiark. But with that last interview, after looking into theories, the only ones I could see were Meracydia and Sharlayan. Now Meracydia and the New World would both be amazing stories to cover in later expansions. But they feel more like they would best fit for the second chapter of the WOL/WOD story after Garlemald. And my only problem for Sharlayan is that its such a small island which means that we are almost certain to be getting two places if Sharlayan is added in.

What do you all think? Where do you believe we're heading to next and what do you think will be waiting for us there? I'd love to bounce some ideas around.

Something about the diction in that first sentence is oddly familiar...

Ahem. Without further input I'm currently betting on Meracydia. Further down in the interview Yoshi-P says we should "get a refresher on Heavensward" as a hint to what's coming next. Aside from Meracydia being the home of Bahamut and Tiamat, pretty much everything on Azys Lla is either explicitly or implicitly Meracydian in origin. One of the driving forces in Heavensward was "dragons," so the general idea is "more dragons" - where better to go than the homeland of the franchise's two most prominent?

Sharlayan is more of a long shot, since it wasn't very prominent in the story. We did go to their abandoned colony out in Dravania, but other than the Great Gubal Library and Matoya's presence, excepting optional content like Eureka.

As Yoshi-P implies, expectations will be subverted and Garlemald is not on the table.

As for what's going to happen, I don't have enough information to reach any sort of hypothesis. The only cosmic-level threat on the table right now is the Sound that would have destroyed the world if not for Zodiark's creation. Zenos will continue to be a thorn in our side, but more worrisome to me is the enigmatic figure now serving as his accomplice. Said figure claimed to have knowledge of the Final Days, albeit "mostly secondhand."

There just isn't enough information to reach a conclusion one way or another, if you ask me.

to tell the truth this kind of worries me, i would like for the world map we have now to be completed first before we head to any new continents and the way ShB seemed to set up that we were heading for the finale of all the first season so to speak, i would rather 6.0 just take us to Islabard and wrap everything up then afterwards when we can have new threats and stories we go to Mercadia and The New World. besides we already have locations developed in Garlemald, I seriously hope this subvert expectation is either a red herring or perhaps something like them being defeated in 5.5 and 6.0 still takes us to Islabard for the final part of the Zodiark arc as well as a clean up job from 5.5. To be honest i think Islabard needs to be the location for 6.0 with an updated World map and possibly Sharlyan as the main city like Kugane as it has been a long time coming.

Plus if there is a big war between superpowers where one is taken out or both exhausted it can lead to other powers rising. One example i can think of would be the Byzantine and Sasanian empires (later iterations of the Roman and Persian empires) exausted each other with a large series of conflicts and wars only to be weakened just in time for the rise of a new power the Rashidun Caliphate which was able to completely conquer the Persians and limit the Roman influence and territory to a single peninsula.

Also i feel Islabard has been a long time coming and i would appreciate no more delays especially since my alt is a Veena Viera and going there could help adapt her backstory just like going to Orthard helped me better adapt my main's backstory

That's a tough call. Garlemald, Sharlayan, and Meracydia were all involved in some capacity during 3.0's questing.

I was pretty sold on the idea that everything from 4.0 all the way up to 5.2's introduction of the Sorrow of Werlyt questline was building up to going deep into Ilsabard, but if that's apparently off the table then my guess would be Sharlayan. Meracydia mostly just lent itself to worldbuilding—I can't recall anything happening with its contributions to Heavensward's plot that say "This is where the story will take us next*". But the AST questline in Heavensward established a still active antagonistic faction in Sharlayan, and one thing moving forward from 5.0 is the idea that the Scions will attempt to preserve the memory of Amaurot, a city-state not unlike Sharlayan in some respects. There's also the fact that the majority of the mainline Scions of the Seventh Dawn are Archons, and quite a few of them even originate from Sharlayan.

I could see some manner of conflict rearing up from that information, whereas anything involving Meracydia at the moment would be like having a ninja suddenly drop in from the shadows and kill a man in an otherwise strictly West European medieval fantasy story. That said, 5.4 and 5.5 will no doubt be devoted to leading into the upcoming expansion—so if we're going to Meracydia next, there will no doubt be ample justification for it in the coming months.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

That's a tough call. Garlemald, Sharlayan, and Meracydia were all involved in some capacity during 3.0's questing.

I was pretty sold on the idea that everything from 4.0 all the way up to 5.2's introduction of the Sorrow of Werlyt questline was building up to going deep into Ilsabard, but if that's apparently off the table then my guess would be Sharlayan. Meracydia mostly just lent itself to worldbuilding—I can't recall anything happening with its contributions to Heavensward's plot that say "This is where the story will take us next*". But the AST questline in Heavensward established a still active antagonistic faction in Sharlayan, and one thing moving forward from 5.0 is the idea that the Scions will attempt to preserve the memory of Amaurot, a city-state not unlike Sharlayan in some respects. There's also the fact that the majority of the mainline Scions of the Seventh Dawn are Archons, and quite a few of them even originate from Sharlayan.

I could see some manner of conflict rearing up from that information, whereas anything involving Meracydia at the moment would be like having a ninja suddenly drop in from the shadows and kill a man in an otherwise strictly West European medieval fantasy story. That said, 5.4 and 5.5 will no doubt be devoted to leading into the upcoming expansion—so if we're going to Meracydia next, there will no doubt be ample justification for it in the coming months.

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Meracydia was where the first recorded primal summonings happened. It was there the Warring Triad appeared (Sephirot is the FIRST White Mage tree), there that the primal version of Bahamut was created (by Tiamat), there that the SMN job was born, there that the first communication with the Voidsent and Cloud of Darkness was established, there that Bahamut was captured in Dalamud, there that the monsters in Azys Lla were captured. Quite literally, Meracydia is so tied to the Ascians, Allagans, practically every major storyline in FFXIV to date that it's the perfect place for the "finale" for the Zodiark/Hydaelyn storyline, despite parts of it being uninhabitable wastelands.

All that tells me is that Meracydia was a place where things happened in the distant past. It says nothing about what Meracydia is like now or why we would go there, which was my point.

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Originally Posted by Rosenstrauch

All that tells me is that Meracydia was a place where things happened in the distant past. It says nothing about what Meracydia is like now or why we would go there, which was my point.

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Everyone was expecting Garlemald / Ilsabard in the lead-up to Shadowbringers, given it was the last unexplored part of the Three Great Continents and the engine of conflict driving most if not all of the story, in addition to its leader now having an excuse to go on the offensive against the rest of the known world.

Instead they took an Alliance raid, two raid storylines, an early 4.0 sidequest, and mixed them with the ubiquitous Ascian influence, then shipped us off to an alternate world.

Nobody has much of an idea as to what's going to happen beyond 5.3 or why at the moment; only the nebulous hints that they will be "go[ing] against players' expectations" and to "get a refresher on Heavensward." Make of those what you will.

All we know of Meracydia right now is that it’s a chaotic, blasted wasteland with shy inhabitants sporadically spread across the continent with no known existing built-up civilizations. Parts of it are uninhabitable. Unless something suddenly happens in 5.4 and 5.5, then I don’t see a reason for us going there.

Then again, no one saw us going to a shard for a whole expansion either, and that was kind of sprung on us.

First I think that Sharlayan and Ilsabard both will be out, because Garlemald is the current antagonists after the Ascians and because I think that Sharlayan will become the antagonists that would replace both.

I think that once the Garlean threat is over,a faction will rise up in Sharlayan, an antithesis of the Scions that seeks to use their vast knowledge to control the world. Either to steal and seal away all the world's knowledge to prevent another Warof the Magi, a bid for World Domination and supremacy, or both.

I also think that they will try to target the Warrior of Light because they are now privy to knowledge that would help in these endeavors, namely that of creation magicks, the shards and the true nature of the poles. And that the Scions were also be targeted by them for similar reasons as well as their obvious ties to the nation.

With that said this means that 6.0 will see the fall of Garlemald as an empire and the rise of Sharlayan as such, also opening up the possibility to visit the former...in 7.0

But that still doesn't answer the question of where we are going for 6.0. To which I think there are threefold possibilities

• Assuming a correlation between the Heavenward and subversion of expectations statements, as well as the aforementioned theory of Sharlayan being the next villain faction, this leaves Meracidia as the obvious choice. As Azys Lla in general does link it to Heavensward, as well as the Coil raids also being tied to the place (it being Bahamut's home), and would also close the book on the First Brood by introducing the last dragon and Tiamat's peer whose name currently escapes me. (EDIT: Okay So I was wrong on there being only 1 dragon left, there were actually 2, Vitra and Azdaja)
• However, Hingashi is also a likely candidate, as that continent has direct ties to Meracydia, and is in a status simialr to Ishgard in 2.0 (only one zone being assessable, granted its the hub so I'm assuming Kugane is a capital city and that if not, than the actual capital would be like Eulmore) and would serve as a foil to Sharlayan given both are currently isolationists. One side being allied to Erorzea, the other going against it
• However there is the New World as a final possibility (and the most big brained one, as it assumes there is no correlation between the statements and that the HW line was meant as a red herring, or that whether ties to HW that are there are because of more recent developments or minor things overall)

I'm also thinking that AST might have a shot of being 7.0's poster job, as it is Sharlayan in origin but was taught to us against their will, and that it will represent a theme of fate and that as a Job that is forbidden knowledge, that Sharlayan will be the bad guys.

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Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

However, Hingashi is also a likely candidate, as that continent has direct ties to Meracydia

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There are NO confirmed ties between Hingashi and Mercaydia. The lore book states that Hingashi was most likely formed as nation by refugees fleeing the collapse of the Allagan Empire, not Meracydian ones.